1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to novel chiral ligands derived from P-chiral phospholanes and P-chiral phosphocyclic compounds and catalysts for applications in asymmetric catalysis. More particularly, the present invention relates to transition metal complexes of these chiral phosphine ligands, which are useful as catalysts in asymmetric reactions, such as, hydrogenation, hydride transfer, hydrocarboxylation, hydrosilylation, hydroboration, hydrovinylation, hydroformylation, allylic alkylation, olefin metathesis, isomerization, cyclopropanation, Diels-Alder reaction, Heck reaction, Aldol reaction, Michael addition, epoxidation, kinetic resolution and [m+n] cycloaddition.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Molecular chirality plays an important role in science and technology. The biological activities of many pharmaceuticals, fragrances, food additives and agrochemicals are often associated with their absolute molecular configuration. A growing demand in pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries is to develop cost-effective processes for the manufacture of single-enantiomeric products. To meet this challenge, chemists have explored many approaches for acquiring enantiomerically pure compounds ranging from optical resolution and structural modification of naturally occurring chiral substances to asymmetric catalysis using synthetic chiral catalysts and enzymes. Among these methods, asymmetric catalysis is perhaps the most efficient because a small amount of a chiral catalyst can be used to produce a large quantity of a chiral target molecule [Book, Ojima, I., Ed. Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis, VCH, New York, 1993 and Noyori, R. Asymmetric Catalysis In Organic Synthesis, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1994].
Asymmetric hydrogenation accounts for major part of all asymmetric synthesis on a commercial scale. Some dramatic examples of industrial applications of asymmetric synthesis include Monsanto's L-DOPA synthesis (asymmetric hydrogenation of a dehydroamino acid, 94% ee, 20,000 turnovers with a Rh-DIPAMP complex) [Knowles, W. S. Acc. Chem. Res. 1983, 16, 106], Takasago's L-menthol synthesis (asymmetric isomerization, 98% ee, 300,000 turnovers with a Rh-BINAP complex) [Noyori, R.; Takaya, H. Acc. Chem. Res. 1990, 23, 345] and Norvatis' (S)-Metolachlor synthesis (asymmetric hydrogenation of an imine, 80% ee, 1,000,000 turnovers with an Ir-ferrocenyl phosphine complex) [Spindler, F.; Pugin, B.; Jalett, H.-P., Buser, H.-P.; Pittelkow, U.; Blaser, H,-U., Altanta, 1996; Chem. Ind. (Dekker), 1996, 63 and Tongni, A. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1996, 356, 14575].
Invention of chiral ligands for transition metal-catalyzed reactions plays a critical role in asymmetric catalysis. Not only the enantioselectivity depends on the framework of chiral ligands, reactivities can often be altered by changing the steric and electronic structure of the ligands.
Since small changes in the ligand can influence the (delta)(delta)G of the rate-determining step, it is very hard to predict which ligand can be effective for any particular reaction or substrate. Accordingly, discovery of new chiral ligands sets the foundation of highly enantioselective transition metal-catalyzed reactions.
In recent years, a large number of chiral ligands have been developed for use in asymmetric catalysis reactions. Despite this, only few chiral ligands have been found to be suitable for use in industry for the production of chiral molecules that require high selectivity.
One of the earliest P-chiral phosphine ligands is DIPAMP, which was developed by Knowles, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 99, 5946 (1977). The Rh(I)-DIPAMP complex has been used in the synthesis of L-DOPA.
There are continuing efforts from many groups to develop strategies for making P-chiral ligands for asymmetric catalysis, including, for example, the following: I. Ojima, Ed., Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis, 2nd ed., VCH publishers, Wheinheim, 2000. Juge and Genet, Tetrahedron Left., 30, 6357 (1989), who have developed a method for making P-chiral phosphines. E. J. Corey, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 115, 11000 (1993), who has developed a method for preparing P-chiral phosphines and diphosphines. An enantioselective deprotonation as a method for the synthesis of P-chiral phosphines has been applied by Evans, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 117, 9075 (1995). Typically, phosphine-borane, phosphine sulfides have been used. Enantioselective deprotonation of these compounds and Cu-mediated coupling reactions can produce a number of diphosphines. A Cu-mediated coupling reaction was reported by Mislow, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 95, 5839 (1973). Formation of phosphine-borane and removal of borane have been reported by Imamoto, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 112, 5244 (1990), Yamago, J. Chem. Soc., Chem. Commun., 2093 (1994) and Livinghouse, Tetrahedron Lett., 35, 9319 (1994). Desulfurization of phosphine sulfides is reported by Mislow, J. Am. Chem., Soc., 91, 7023 (1969). More recently, Imamoto has successfully used these strategies to make a number of P-chiral phosphines such as BisP*, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 123, 5268 (2001), MiniPhos, J. Org. Chem., 64, 2988 (1999) and other mixed P-chiral ligands, Org. Lett., 3, 373 (2001).
These ligands have been used effectively in many asymmetric reactions, especially in asymmetric hydrogenation reactions, such as those described in Adv. Synth. Catal., 343, 118 (2001).
Some of these ligands are depicted below:

Despite the wide variation in the substituted groups in the above ligands, the majority of these ligands are derivatives of the DIPAMP ligand. A possible drawback of these ligands is that ligands having a DIPAMP structure are conformationally flexible and, as a result, enantioselectivity is difficult to optimize.
In contrast to the ligands of the prior art, the present invention provides a phospholane and phosphocyclic structure to restrict the conformational flexibility such that a high enantioselectivity can be achieved in the transition metal catalysts prepared from these ligands.
Thus, from a stereochemical point of view, additional stereogenic centers (e.g. four or more stereogenic centers) are typically created to make the novel ligands of the present invention substantially more selective in asymmetric catalytic reactions than, for example, the DIPAMP and BisP* ligands, which have only two stereogenic centers.